Short Verdict: Blackwell Unbound is the second installment in my favorite point-and-click adventure series in this century. The Blackwell series definitely has a special place in my heart. BU tells the story of Lauren Blackwell, a medium, and Joey, a spirit stuck with the Blackwell family, and they both go about solving mysteries in the 70's, if I'm not mistaken, and investigating cases related to ghosts who have problems moving on to the afterlife. It's definitely better than The Blackwell Legacy, but the sequels are even better. It's really fun and brings you back to old-school adventure games, while still bringing fresh elements to the table. If you're into classic point-and-click games, you most definitely have to try it! I had played it a few years ago and it was still fun to replay it now. Don't forget to play The Blackwell Legacy first! While you could play BU as a standalone game, you'll miss a little bit if you haven't played TBL.

Pros:

Despite having ghosts and all, characters are very realistic, well-developed, deep, interesting, funny, and loveable

The story is interesting and solving the mysteries is really fun

The puzzles are kept to a sober level of difficulty, but there's no handholding, either

The dialogues and the voice acting are really outstanding, I can't stress it enough. And this game has no problems with different volumes like its prequel.

Has a very interesting mechanic in which you combine clues instead of items to solve puzzles, and that works really well with the investigation theme

This time you get to control both Lauren and Joey, adding a lot to the puzzles

Beautiful retro graphics

BGM is awesome, way better than the already good tunes from TBL

Cons:

Sometimes the audio played doesn't match the text written

The low resolution annoys me a bit (you can set it to 1280x960, though, but that option is hard to find)

While the game itself is a lot more polished than its prequel, they didn't take the time to properly proofread the dialogues, especially the ones with a character named C.

Bought on: PC and Android Bundle 11 by Humble Bundle for an average of US$ 0.55 (roughly R$ 1,46). It's also totally worth its full price, which isn't high at all!

Perhaps The Blackwell Unbound’s biggest contribution to the series, is giving it a far larger scope and nuance than what was only hinted at in the first game.Long before Rosa Blackwell ever met Joey Mallone (or had even been born for that matter), Unbound follows her aunt, Lauren, Joey’s previous “hostage” and an experienced medium at the point we find her. Unbound isn’t so much about her adventures with Joey though, as it is a foreshadowing of what we already know happens to her.

In many ways she’s the spitting image of her niece, though certainly more confident and assertive than the depressed Rosa we met in Legacy, yet tied by the common thread of having largely given up on the world. Lauren has devoted herself to helping lingering ghosts move on to the afterlife, but otherwise is unsure for what purpose she’s living for. Or at least that’s what she tells herself, but when caught up in an investigation she becomes a wholly different person.

Lauren is persistent and dedicated to doing whatever is necessary to finish a case, no matter if it means pressing people for information they’d rather forget, or putting her life on the line to catch a killer. Maybe it’s because she feels she has no other purpose that she’s able to so readily move forward, unafraid of how dangerous it could become. By abandoning her worry she’s able to fully embody her role as a medium, as if she too was a ghost and nothing could harm her. She’s a refreshingly capable heroine in a landscape of unstable sex objects, who manages to be tough without losing her humanity. There’s the feeling she’s still scared underneath her fearless exterior, and allows herself to become vulnerable at times to avoid a complete breakdown, but she’s always in control of any situation she puts herself in whether interrogating a witness or firing back when Joey gets brash.

It’s in the final moments of Unbound though that are the most affecting. We’ve already been told what eventually happens to Lauren in Legacy, but it’s seeing it and hearing Joey’s ignorant condolences that made me almost angry at what his presence has done and continues to do to the Blackwells. It casts Lauren and Rosa’s relationship with him in a different light and made me question his every word, now unsure if I could trust him the way I was, wondering if he had a more nefarious purpose for being there all along. Much of Unbound feels inessential, like another episode in a show you enjoy but could afford to miss, but its implications on the larger whole of the Blackwell saga is perhaps the most significant bit of exposition in the series thus far. Suddenly things have become a hell of a lot more complicated.

Blackwell Unbound is the second game in the Blackwell series, and it’s a very considerable improvement over its predecessor. It takes all the concepts introduced in the first game and explores them far more thoroughly, creating a perfect blend of gameplay, story, and puzzle difficulty. While still great, Blackwell Legacy was at times too linear and straight-forward, as well as ruled over by its exposition.

Now, Blackwell Unbound takes a step forward and balances all its elements very well. The writing and characters are absolutely wonderful, and the jazz-noir atmosphere is thoroughly soothing. And the puzzles, as mentioned, are a bunch of fun to solve. After playing it, it's suitably become one of my favorites in the genre.

A short and sweet point and click in the old school tradition.Wel lrealized characters with decent spoken dialogue, though the two leads were top knotch.The puzzles were not too obtuse, but some of the solutions were somewhat "buried" which was a tiny bit annoying.A better outing than the first game, Blackwell Legacy. I liked Lauren a lot better as a Main Character.I like seeing how these indie games improve over time.In the end it is well worth the 2-3 hour play time just for the music alone.

Short but engaging pre-sequel to the Blackwell Legacy. The story takes place years before the first game, and focuses on solving the murders of two people who are now ghosts. The puzzles aren't difficult, but you will have to pay attention to clues in conversations and documents to piece together the answers to some of them.

Like the other Blackwell-Games, this is a very good low budget Point&Click-Adventure game and definitely worth buying if you like the genre! I would recommend starting with "Blackwell Legacy", as that is the first game in the series and "Blackwell Unbound" is the second one.

In contrast to the first game you won't see any major flaws in game design in this one (like huge infodumps and the infamous first rather boring puzzle with the doorman). The plot pacing is a lot faster and the puzzles are a bit more interesting. However, the game length stays about the same, depends how quick you solve all the puzzles, as does the general gameplay. You still got your notebook and puzzles are mostly solved via dialogues and said notebook and rarely with items in your inventory.

Personally, this is my favourite game of the series. I thought the relationship between Lauren and Joey was much more interesting than the one between Rosa and Joey, the dialogues were really good and fleshed out the characters really well. Besides that, I REALLY loved that voice of Lauren <3. I really wished Dave Gilbert would make another game with Lauren.

if your into point and clicks adventure games you can't go wrong with the Blackwell series.they are ghost / detective stories where you'll need to swap between the 2 to hunt for clues.kinda of serous stories with humor based on dialog between a disheartened girl with a smoking problem and her disgruntled ghost.

“BOO! Oh, look. I scared it to death. Wait. No. Hold on. It was already like that.”

Blackwell Unbound represents the second of five parts in the Blackwell series. On its own it is a prequel dealing with the past of the first game. Compared with its predecessor it has a better balance between gameplay and storytelling.

Other strong points are the mature characters and their witty dialogues. In addition the puzzles are more logical and the voice acting remains top notch. While the main story is not as strong as in Blackwell Legacy, the underlying storyline profits from this flashback.

Fun fact: The storyline of Blackwell Unbound was originally a part of Blackwell Convergence, but due to budget issues it was decided to release the game content as a stand-alone. --

My rating system consists of six categories in descending order of importance:

- Atmosphere- Characters- Details- Puzzles- Story- Controls

Based on the performance each category will receive one of the following grading:

Not the biggest fan of the games of this series. While they are alright bite-sized adventure games I never really liked the characters very much (other then Joey). The puzzles were alright and the dialog...decent but I never got hooked on the story as a whole. Think this might be in the better half of the Blackwell games but as I cant really recommend any of the games seperatly as you should play all four as a whole you'd have to experience everything no matter what.

Has some tricky achievements that will require some extra focus (especially the smoking achievements). If you dont plan ahead during your first playthrough or use savefiles in a clever way you will need to beat the game twice. Also make sure, like all Blackwell games, to turn on the commentary track during your first playthrough.

Blackwell Unbound is one of the first few point-and-clicks that I genuinely liked. The game focuses on the story and character interaction so I found that I didn't have to think too much in order to progress through the game. I just found myself getting into all the conversations with the various personalities.

At certain points of the game, I found myself wanting to know more about certain characters. It's a bit unfortunate that the scope of what you discover isn't as broad as what it could be but then again, that kind of information can derail from this type of game's main focus.

My only real gripe with the game is how Lauren keeps flicking her cigarette all over the place when her apartment has like 3 ashtrays and an ashpail outside. You would think she'd use one of them.

Background: Love Point & clicks. Stumbled across this as a reddit recommend during the summer sale. Played shortly after Perfidious Petrol Station (similar style game) so was in the mood for retro gaming.

Reviewing both the first and second game as they are very similar and i played them back to back.

Impressions: Anyone whose played the first two Blackwell games will point to their lo-fi charm.. Blackwell captures the days of SCUMM/Lucasarts perfectly... all too perfectly with it's qwerks, dead-ends, glitches and clunky interface. But as ever it's the story and characters that need to stand-out and within 5minutes I was hooked on the plot and invested in the characters.

The Good:* Superb story in a world that feels lived in.* Original gameplay ideas that are fun to explore.* Great characters and cases that make logical sense.* The Notepad mechanic is genius.* Recaptures the days of Monkey Island.* Achievements make replay more fun.* Commentary is fun and enlightening.

The Bad:* Voice acting can be a little off (part of the charm).* Can get deadended because you missed clicking one thing.* Save/Load interface is awkward.* Can't ALT+TAB on Win 7 without locking up and CTRL+DEL.* Some visuals are stretched by widescreen monitors.* Some lines unvoiced or used in error (very few).* Commentary is spoliery don't listen on first play-through.* Short length but value when bought as a pack.* Bonus features has audio swearing not in the main game.

Recommended for: Old school P n' C fans who value plot and characters over glitz. Ideal for nostalgia hounds and teens who like the supernatural.

Conclusion.7/10. It won't blow you away but it's a solid set of games and deserves to be played.

Great game, better than the first! Compared to the first one the voice acting, art and story are much better. If your a fan of the first game, or just like point n' click adventures in general give this a go. This series is a great place to start for begginer point n' click players.

The second game in the Blackwell series is a prequel, and involves a very important character mentioned in the first game. It is shorter, and the plot is not as gripping as Blackwell Legacy. However, there's some fun puzzles and introduces a new way to find information and solve puzzles which was not possible before. The writing is solid, and the voice acting is really great as it was in the first game.